Off topic: Good American history book?

I've been homeschooling for eleven years; I have an 18 year old and a 10 year old. I teach Latin and Great Books to homeschoolers, and I've been working in a homeschool bookstore in CA (very part-time) for four years. I have several recommendations that I think you should research to help you find just what you might be looking for.

www.mainlesson.com is a website full of free online texts which were originally published as school books in the late 1800's and early 1900's.

www.bfbooks.com has an excellent history guide for Early American history for primary students which takes a literature approach to history and uses wonderful books such as the D'Aulaire books (many of which can be found at the library).

If you are interested in a Christian approach to history, I also like the American History books for children by Peter Marshall which you can view at www.petermarshallministries; I've used both the workbooks for younger students (ages 5-8) and the texts (ages 8-12). Look for the titles "The Light and the Glory," "From Sea to Shining Sea," and "Sounding Forth the Trumpet."

All of these will give your children a great introduction to American History, however, my bias is to teach history chronologically from the beginning of time using a series such as Susan Wise Bauer's 4 volume Story of the World, and then supplement additional American History when you get to Volumes 3 & 4. You can begin volume 1 as a read aloud for first graders and up, and there is a wonderful activity guide for each volume with additional reading suggestions, mapwork, coloring pages, and really fun and interesting activities and games you can do with your kids.

I hope this helps, and have a wonderful first year of homeschooling!!!

history seems to be the hardest subject to pick the "right" books for.

and have yet to find an unbiased history textbook for any age, but the curriculum I use , Sonlight Curriculum, uses the best textbooks, and the teacher's manual shows where the texts go wrong, and gives interesting information that is omitted. Recommend it highly. One example, during a study of American History, there was an account in the teacher's manual of when Davey Crockett spoke to the Congress, being a congressman, on why he would not vote to give money to some person who lost their home in a fire. His speech sounded like something Ron Paul would say. They have a website. http://www.sonlight.com/

In some of the information archived at http://delicious.com/EasyHistory
To understand how the U.S. economy works - start at federal reserve, then petrodollar recycling, then military industrial complex

But for older children (middle school and up) "The Story of Liberty" and "Sweet Land of Liberty" by Charles C. Coffin are classics. The byline for "The Story of Liberty" is "So You will comprehend what liberty has cost and what it is worth.

Maybe you can adapt the stories for your younger children.

Healthnut4freedom

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths." Proverbs 3:5,6

It will be a process of communication and explanation with lots of analogies when you see them. Things like REAL American History must be backed-up and supported via repetition...just as THEIR history is taught.

This is of course why certain ideologies survive...even in the face of their popular failure.

If you examine the Bullet Points at the end of each chapter in The Creature From Jekyll Island by. G. Edward Griffin, you may have a good map go by in starting to "tell the story" when appropriate. It will even be interesting for you yourself when it comes to reviewing the events of history through different glasses and from a different perspective. Each time you do it you see more and more. Actually it is quite astounding really.

**“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.” ~ Mark Twain **